WHAT

TD Summit 19 Workshops / from derivative / First set of workshops from the 2019 TouchDesigner Summit in Montreal are up! Had the fantastic fortune of attending some of these in person 😀

Designing AR Applications / from Google Developers / A Google I/O talk from earlier this year about using ARCore to develop applications; including a quick overview of the latest framework features (cloud anchors! environmental HDR's!)

$1 Touchscreen / from Anish Athalye / Cool hack breakdown for an ingenious way to make any MacBook touch-capacitive - love these creative moments of inspiration, reminds me of how I developed the touch points on my Interactive Book.

WHO

I was blown away by the elegant minimalism and visual impact of The Man with No Shadow — an array of copper wire strands with carefully placed LEDs that create a dimensional silhouette. Tojiki has explored this concept across bluebird, the inimitable Hope and Dream and even a commission for Carrie Fisher (yes, Princess Leia). His sculptural work continues to touch on the premise of organic, dimensional forms through other media such as steel.

WHAT

pixelfactory / from Kenichi Okada / Wow — this art object displays pixel animations using only light passing through a grid of optical fibers. A custom piece of software processes text and images into a printed sheet of time-sliced data that is slid through the device to create the visuals.

WHO

The first time I attended the Sundance Film Festival, I happened onto Brendan's spectacular installation "Local Murmurs" at the AirBnB Haus. Ever since, I've been a follower of his work — from his inspiring film data visualizations like Cinema Redux (acquired by MoMa) to his open-source Plastic Player which is a beautiful analog interface for streaming music. Dawes' shares a lot of his insight and thinking through his aptly named blog, Process, and maintains the limited shop Produced For Use.

AR Wall Mural / from ustwo / As a huge fan of using AR to create tangible interactions between physical reality and the digital layer, I love this minimal, artistic use for IG/FB created by the ustwo team.

WHO

When I first came across his work in facial projection-mapping, particularly INORI (Prayer)— it blew my mind. Asai is an extremely talented artist and technologist who uses experimental technologies combined with light mapping in a wide range of media, from installations to music videos and 360VR (check out this homage to Ghost In The Shell, Virtual Reality Diver).

WHAT

Document 1. Workshop / from CAN / Solid introduction to working with microcontrollers (and Processing) to drive RGB LED Matrices.

HoloLens 2 / from Microsoft / The marketing seems to be much more heavily focused on practical applications (disrupting business), but I'm sure we can find a way to break that (read: Kinect hacking). The device itself remains, hands-down, the most beautiful product design in its category.

CTRL-kit / from Ctrl-labs / Excited for the potential of this neural hardware kit, especially in installations— use your brain to finely control interactive elements. Not as cool as this though.

I figured I'd jot down a few notes that have started to help me wrap my head around how GLSL works. To be honest, I've had to reference these thoughts quite a bit because I don't work with the language consistently. The best technical reference, IMO, is still from the Book of Shaders but I hope someone finds my perspective helpful.

*Note: As part of my GLSL in TouchDesigner quick reference, this post will continue to evolve as I dive into this strange, new world.

WHO

David is a real-time artist with an impressive body of work executed at the interactive giant, Leviathan. A true software engineer, he is constantly pushing the limits of TouchDesigner by implementing algorithms and tools that bend the engine. He graciously shares an enormous amount of those explorations on GitHub. You can see more on his IG.

WHAT

Responsive Potential / from FIELD / An interactive light installation commissioned by Microsoft that seeks to physically visualize "the Azure cloud".

Deep Learning AR Puppets / from 2020CV / Super exciting demo that shows off the potential of machine learning with mobile AR. Available soon as a camera filter, I'm sure.

AI.lab / from Microsoft / Really cool series of open source AI projects across different usages, from intelligent robotics to generative storytelling, that you can learn from and demo.

WHO

Jessica is an amazing architect, artist and teacher whose work explores the boundaries of physical and digital interaction. Her latest project, NORAA, exemplifies this perfectly— a playful installation designed to train a machine to learn through physical interaction. She has a great series of creative coding challenges that you can explore on her @shedrawswithcode IG.

Pixel Spirit / from Patricio Gonzalez Vivo / A beautiful, educational deck of cards in a progression-based teaching format that helps you learn GLSL as it unfolds the mysteries of the universe.. or something like that. Really cool concept.

WHO

He's an artist and engineer, a master craftsman and teacher whose work, which he continues to graciously share through an open source ethos, has benefited audiences and the creative technology community alike.

I first discovered Patricio's work in 2017 while doing my own research on Kinect-based gesture recognition and tracking, for which he had previously (2011!!) shared a couple of OpenFrameworks tools. Most recently, I've found myself indebted to his efforts again as I study the GLSL programming language— for which he maintains the amazing resource that is The Book of Shaders.